


Homeless

by Primrose_Chase_Foster



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Original Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:47:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24778642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Primrose_Chase_Foster/pseuds/Primrose_Chase_Foster
Summary: Cilla is going home for the first time after twelve years. But she doesn't know the family she finds at home. It's not her home. Can she find her real family?





	Homeless

Preface  
I travel up the long gravel road in a small buggy, waiting to see my parents' faces again. It’s been nine years. A lot has happened since I saw them last, though I don’t even remember when that was.  
Despite my excitement, butterflies who had way too much Mt. Dew are fluttering inside my stomach. What if they don’t want me? What if they say I’m a disappointment? What if they make me go to bed early?  
I look over at the man driving the buggy. His name is Paul. We were never close, I was never close with anyone at Theesberg. No one took the time to get to know me. What if my parents do that?  
No, that can’t be, these are my parents I’m talking about. Not heartless jerks, right?  
We pull into a long winding driveway. At the end of it is a house. Beautiful Roman style columns reach up to the roof, a shady veranda underneath. A rocking chair and table rest in a corner off to the side and a door is wide open, leaving just the screen. I hear the clatter of dishes and voices inside.  
A woman comes and opens the screen door. Her eyes grow larger when she sees me and her mouth drops open.  
I look her up and down. Her deep brown and gray hair is tied in a ponytail and a green calico dress hangs down to her mid- calf.  
A strangled cry escapes her as she rushes forward and crushes me in a hug. “Oh, I’ve missed you so much, my baby girl!” And then she starts crying. I struggle out of her choking grip.  
“Who are you?” I exclaim.  
She stares at me aghast. “I’m your mother.”  
“No, you’re not! Paul-” I turn around but Paul and the buggy have disappeared.  
“Wait till your father sees you!” 

2 years later

The blue birthday cake is very lopsided. I mean very. I’m pretty sure if you even touch it, it will fall off the platter. Anyway, everybody gathers around it.  
“Cilla, you’re twelve! Make a wish honey!” Diana says. I roll my eyes but close them anyway. Blowing out the candles I wish, to find my real parents. I blow out the candles and everyone starts singing happy birthday.  
That night I sit on my window sill and stare out at the moon.  
“I’m 12 now. I’m sure you would have loved to see me growing up.” I say to the stars. “Where are you? Are you real? Are you dead? Why didn’t the people of Theesburg bring me to you? And why do I remember everything about the Theesburg? All the kids at school seem to think their life started at 10, when they came home. But I still haven’t found my home. All the kids at school, well, they forgot about the Theesburg.”  
Then it hit me so suddenly I almost stopped breathing. What if the kids at school only think they’ve met their parents? Maybe, if they forgot about the Theesburg, they forgot about their parents. Or maybe I was just processed wrong. I was just processed wrong. Now your brain is going crazy, so just get yourself to bed, you’ll be fine.  
I walk over to my bed and climb in, but it takes me an hour to finally fall asleep. 

“Okay, you have everything? Got your backpack? Your school books? Did you get all your homework done?”  
“Diana, I have everything. And yes, I got all my homework done. I’ll see you after school, okay.”  
“All right. Honey, have a good day at school!” Diana calls out as I walk down the driveway.  
“Okay!” I call back. Another day of school. 21 days to go.  
The walk to school is short, only a quarter mile. I have a nice school. It’s small, just like the town. It has a small school yard, with a basketball hoop on one side and a tetherball on the other side. Green grass is everywhere and the school itself is small, only a few rooms big.  
At the school yard I run into Juno and her gang. “Ah, the mess up, the failure.” she says.  
“Yeah, well I think my parents are more proud of me than your parents are of you.” I snap.  
“Oh, but they aren’t your parents. No, you made that clear when you first got here. You said the Theesburg messed up. And that was when we realized how messed up you really were. You’re mental.”  
“Stop shurring on her!” Heracles shouts from a few feet away.  
“One day of detention!” Says our grammar professor. Juno and her gang giggle.  
“Ah, come on!” Heracles complains.  
“No language is the rule. You break the rule, you get detention.” With that Mr. Narcissus walks away.  
“Stop bothering her.” Heracles glares at Juno and leads me to another part of the schoolyard.  
“What did she say?” He asks.  
I shrug. “Same thing as always.  
“But you look worse.” He comments.  
I shake my head, “I didn't sleep well last night.”  
“What did they say? Something they said bothered you.” Somehow Heracles can always read my expressions.  
“I was being honest, you know. They did say the same thing as always, it just made me think of something I’d thought of last night.”  
“Ah... And what did you think of last night?”  
“Well, you know how I remember everything from the Theesburg? And how I know Diana and Lucius aren’t my real parents? What if the reason I know they aren’t my parents is because I didn’t forget anything? I didn’t forget my 9 years in the Theesburg!”  
“What are you saying?” Heracles says slowly.  
“What if I’m the only one who realizes the people I’m living with, the people I was sent to, aren’t my parents!”  
He stops. “You mean all of us, could be living with the people who aren’t our parents.”  
“Yeah!”  
“But I recognized them.” All my excitement deflates. I never thought of how this news would affect Heracles. How I’m telling him his parents aren’t really his parents. Sometimes it’s easy to forget, he isn’t like me. No one is. No one else remembers their time in the Theesburg.  
“I think you're right.”  
“What?” did I hear him wrong?  
“That makes sense, but why would They do that?”  
I shrug my shoulders. “I don’t know.” At that moment the school bell rings and everyone in the tiny yard rushes off to class.  
“Meet me after school,” with that Heracles rushed off to class. 

Heracles walks me home after school. “So, what are we going to do?” he asks.  
“About what?”  
“About the thing you mentioned earlier. How people might not know who their parents are.”  
“Oh. What would we do?”  
“Find your parents!”  
I laugh. “Sorry,” I say after doing so, “It’s just, I just finished Geography, my parents could be anywhere in the U.S.”  
“Sure, so then we go to the Theesburg. Find your file there. It’s sure to have your parents information. You said it’s not far, right.”  
“No it’s not,” I say, doubtfully, “but it’s been a long time. I doubt I would remember the way. I don’t even know if I have a file.”  
“Cilla, come on, you lived there for nine years, how could you possibly not have a file? Anyway, I know you, you have impeccable memory and I know you could figure it out as we go!”  
“Okay, but why should I even go? I like Diana and Lucius. Why do I need to find my parents?”  
Heracles glares at me. “Okay. seriously, know you know that you’re lying. You dream of your parents every night. You love adventure!”  
“How do you know I dream of them?”  
“I can read your mind, remember?”  
“Yeah, but…”  
“But what will it take for me to convince you? You could find your parents, Cilla!” Heracles exclaims.  
I stop us along the road and say, “What’s the plan?”  
“For going?'' I hear the excitement in his voice.  
“If we were to go.”  
“We can’t go home or they’ll suspect something when we leave.”  
“So I’m leaving them? Forever?”  
“Nah, just for a few hours. They wont even know.” he reassures me.  
I sigh. “Okay, but we have to retrace the steps I took that day, so maybe go to the edge of the clearing at my house? At the tree line?”  
Heracles gives me a thumbs up, “whatever you say, boss!” 

Once we reach the tree line at my house we head north for an hour.  
“I feel like we should be there!” Heracles complains.  
“Remember, the drive was only ten minutes, and that was on a buggy, so it’s going to take longer on foot.” I remind him.  
“Yeah, but if it was only a ten minute drive then how has no one ever found it?”  
“Stop.”  
“What?”  
“I said we should stop, I recognize this place.”  
“I didn’t hear a suggestion, I heard a command.” Heracles grumbles as his off white shirt gets caught on a branch.  
All around me the trees whisper a song and the birds join in. the whole evergreen forest is alive! It’s a song I've heard before, and I find myself singing along to it.  
“Uh, Cilla, what are you doing?” Heracles asks, interrupting me from my nostalgia.  
“I know this place.”  
“Yeah, err, hate to burst your bubble but these trees look exactly the same as the ones 12 minutes ago.”  
“Come on!” I grab his wrist and we run into a clearing. The trees sway with the music and the birds sing long, the wild flowers are lit with glory by the sun and the grass is the greenest grass I’ve ever seen. But the middle of the clearing is the most amazing.  
A large white Victorian style house sits all presteen and perfect.  
“I don’t think anyone’s here.” I say.  
“Ha! Yeah, let’s hope not…” The house looks empty, but not abandoned. “How could they keep this place hidden? It’s not very far from the town but no one’s found it? How is that possible?” Heracles asks.  
“I have no idea. Let’s check it out!” I walk over to the mansion and Heracles follows.  
Inside the mansion it’s just like I’d remembered. A beautiful white staircase is in the corner and toys litter the floor. Rocking chairs and end tables are set up in a large circle for an evening meeting.

I’m taken back in time, Aunt Phoebe is knitting and gossiping with Penelope and Paul gets them coffee and gives me a glass of chocolate milk.  
“Pick your stuff up off the floor, Cilla, before Paul steps on them! Geez, the children these days!” Penelope sighs.  
“Well whatever they’ve become, it’s all your fault! You’re the one raising them!” Aunt Phoebe complains.  
“I don’t rais all the kids, Phoebe!”  
“It’s a good thing too, otherwise they wouldn’t have any manners!”  
The old ladies shriek insults at each other as Paul picks 5 year old me up and walks me up the stairs. He sets me in my bed and pulls my pink covers over me.  
“Paul, why do they always fight?” I ask.  
He hands me my stuffed elephant.  
“What do they mean by the others?”  
As always, The Silent Paul (as the older women have named him) goes silent. He just walks to the doorway, looks back sadly, and turns off the light. 

“Hey, earth to Cilla, what’s going on in that brain of yours?” I come back to reality and find Heracles waving his hand in front of his face.  
I shake myself out of my daze. “Let’s check out upstairs.”  
We walk the stone staircase and the upstairs is very similar to two years ago, when I used to live here.  
The walls are a light shade of gray, but the top floor is still vibrant with light coming from all the open curtains. The carpet is squishy under my feet and the light smell of Geraniums from Aunt Phoebe’s room wafts down the hall.  
With excitement I rush down the hall to find…  
They’ve changed my childhood bedroom. I have no idea why this bothers me, but it does. All the pictures on my desk are replaced with flower pots and dirt. The once white carpet is now a dirty off white and smells. The curtains are shut, giving the room a very gloomy feel. I guess the closed curtains were too much. I didn’t know I was crying until a tear tickles my nose.  
“Hey, it’s okay.” Heracles tries to reassure me.  
“This was min- my room.” my voice breaks. “Let’s go.” I wipe a tear off my cheek and turn to leave. Heracles touches my arm.  
“Was this your stuff?” He asks, kneeling down to scrounge through a box which had been hidden in the shadow-y corner.  
“Yeah.”  
“Is this them?” On top is a picture of my parents, even though I’d never known my real parents, I had used that picture as a reminder, I would see them sometime. But I never did. Instead, when I thought I would finally know a real family after 9 years, they took me and dropped me off at a strangers house. I’ve lived there ever since, wishing I could go back in time and find my precious parents.  
“Yeah.” I sniffle.  
My mother’s smile is wide as her long black hair falls around her face, my father’s light blonde hair glows in the sun as he pulls his wife in for a kiss. Now I look at it and two things go through my head. 1: As a kid wasn’t I supposed to think kissing was disgusting and revolting? And, 2, do they miss me now?  
Heracles looks up at me, “We’ll find them. We have to.” All I do is nod my head.  
“Cilla. Look.”  
Underneath Heracles fingers is a sign reading, Cilla Omar’s stuff. Child of Sapphire Omar and Atticus Omar. Now living with Diana Thompson and Lucius Thompson. Left 2 years ago.  
“What…”  
“I don’t know, Heracles. I don’t know.”  
“Really? You tell me you remember the Theesburg but you don’t know what this means? Why Cilla, I’m so surprised!” he exclaims sarcastically.  
I glare at him.  
“Okay,” he says, “but in all seriousness, we know their names. This is good. We can track them down.”  
“But we don’t know where they live.”  
“Uh, ooh, how ‘bout this? Do you remember the road you took when you were one to get here?”  
“Heracles! I was one.”  
“Good point. There has to be something around here.” The two of us start searching every nook and cranny searching for a clue.  
Finally, Heracles finds something. “Look here!” on the top shelf of one of the cupboards a small pile of maps sat. Heracles pulls them down and scrounges through them.  
“What are they for?” I ask.  
“It looks like they are for different cities. They have house names written on them.”  
“Wait really! Let me see!” I exclaim. He shows me the maps. Sure enough, towns and houses and markets were labeled on it.  
“Maybe we can find your real parent’s house on here!” Heracles exclaims. “See, I think we could, because each house is labeled by the last name of the family, here’s mine, Goodwich. And here’s yours, Thompson, so we just need to find-” we hear a commotion outside. “What was that?” Heracles whispers.  
“I have no idea,” I tell him. We wait a few seconds and hear conversation.  
“Can I make a suggestion?” Heracles asks.  
“Sure.”  
“Run.”  
“But where!?”  
“There has to be a backdoor somewhere!” We start frantically searching for a way out before people catch us.  
“Heracles, I remember something! The basement! There’s a set of doors that lead out of the basement!” We scramble down the creaky, wooden steps that lead us to the heart of the moldy basement.  
“Geez, somebody’s gotta do some cleaning up here!” Heracles exclaims, waving his hand over his nose.  
“This way!” I grab Heracles’s wrist and we stumble through the dark to the doors. Once we get there the two of us use all our strength to open them. I don’t think they’ve been opened in a year, they had seemed sealed shut by cobwebs and mold. Scrambling on a wooden crate we hadn’t realized was at our feet we climb out of the basement. We find ourselves in the backyard of the mansion. Carefully, we sneak to the edge of the house and see what’s going on.  
To my amazement, Paul, Aunt Phoebe, and Penelope are walking up the steps holding a bundle of blue blankets. It moved, too.  
“Is that…”  
“A baby.” I finish the sentence for him.  
“Come on, we should go,” Heracles puts his arm around my waist and leads me back into the protection of the woods.  
I look behind me. The mansion is gone. “Where does it go?” I ask.  
“I don’t know.” with that we continue our journey, being guided by the map Heracles had stolen. 

At the end of a long road, (after about 3 hours of walking through the woods) we find the tiniest of cabins nestled among the evergreens.  
“This looks cozy.” the strawberry blond boy mentions.  
I look over his shoulder, “What does the map say?”  
He looks at me and I see a tiny freckle at the tip of his nose. Blood rushes to my cheeks and I take a step back. He stares at me a second longer before looking at the map and saying, “It says we are at the Omar’s house. Are you ready?”  
“Ready to meet my parents? I’ve been ready for two years.” I have never felt so many butterflies in my stomach.  
The house has a stone chimney with smoke meandering it’s way out. The cabin looks like the Link In Logs I used to play with when I was a child growing up in the Theesburg.  
We walk up to the wooden front door and I knock. Within a moment a man with graying blond hair opens the door. Something in my brain clicks and I whisper, “dad?” He doesn’t seem to hear me though, he chuckles and asks, “Who are you children?”  
“What is it, Atticus?” a woman's voice asks. A girl with shoulder length black hair and shimmering silver eyes comes up behind my dad. She is a little taller than me and looks maybe a year older.  
“Hi,” the girl's soft voice says. Her small smile is sweet and matches the gentleness of her silver eyes.  
“Uh, are you guys the Omars?” Heracles asks.  
“Yeah, who are you?” my da- Atticus, asks.  
“I-” the boy places his hand on his chest, “I’m Heracles Goodwich, and this is Cilla uh, Cilla Thompson.”  
“No offense, but your parents aren't very skilled with naming.” Atticus says. I press my lips together and blink a lot. I think I have something in my eye, it seems to be blurring my vision.  
“Uh,” Heracles starts again, “We were just walking, to, uh my house, it’s kind of far away, I was wondering if we could stay with you guys? Just for the night. We can sleep anywhere, you don’t have to feed us or anything-”  
“Oh, why I think we could spare two servings of dinner tonight, don’t you, Atticus?” A woman with straight, black hair and silver eyes comes up behind the girl my age and rests her hand on her shoulder.  
“I’m Sapphire. This is my husband Atticus, and my daughter Oceanus. She says, pointing to the man then the girl in turn.  
“It’s no bother reall-”  
“We’ll take it.” Heracles interrupts me. My throat starts to close up. What is he thinking? We can’t stay with these people! Another part of me, a part I try my hardest to ignore, says why are they so comfortable with letting random kids into their house? Do we look that helpless, or are they going to hurt us? My emotions are a jumbled mess that I can barley decipher, all I know is I feel fear, longing, and hate. Hate towards the people who took me away from my family.  
I follow Heracles and walk into the log cabin, it is super cozy.  
As we had already known, the fire was lit, a tabby cat lay stretched out in front of it and a couch and a rocking chair covered in blankets surrounded the fireplace. Across the room a wooden table and wooden stools with cushions on them led the way into a kitchen. A stove top stood against a wall with a pot on top with something clearly brewing inside.  
“You really live on your own, huh?” Heracles asks the couple.  
“Yes,” Sapphire responds, “We were hoping that when we had our child, she wouldn’t be taken away from us. But, the government still took her, but the most important thing is we have her now.” she brushes her hand against Oceanus’ face and the girl smiles back. I turn my head to find the old tabby staring at me. I avert my eyes and pay attention to Sapphire talking.  
“Why don’t you children sit at the table while we get everything ready?”  
We sit down on the stools and I lean over and whisper to Heracles.  
“What are you doing?”  
“I didn’t know it would be like this, sorry. But we needed a place to stay, and in the morning, we will tell them all about the Theesburg, and all about you.”  
“Why would we?” He looks at me sharply but I keep talking, “They already have a daughter. The government replaced me they don’t care about me and they never ever will.”  
“What are you talking about? Just wait ‘till they know you. They’ll love you. And the soonest way for them to get to know you is to tell them about yourself.”  
“Yeah, but telling them about me should not include my secrets.”  
“Since when was that a secret?” Heracles hisses.  
“Since no one belived me? Look, we can’t tell them the truth.”  
“Then what are we doing here? You know we have to leave tomorrow, right? You don’t have any time to build up trust! Just tell them the truth.” The truth is scary, I can’t bring myself to even think the truth, why the heck would I tell them the truth?  
“Because they deserve to know the truth.” Heracles says, reading into my facial expression in that creepy way he does.  
I try to calm myself and tell him, “Heracles, you’ve known me ever since I got back from the Theesburg, you know that people never believe me.”  
“But we have to give them the chance to know the truth.” I can’t disagree with him when I stare into his light green eyes. His eyes are intense and I can’t tear mine away. He can though. His gaze drops just the slightest and I realize the amount of space between our faces. Less than a foot.  
“Do you want marmalade or honey on your bread?” Sapphire asks. I look away from Heracles’s face and clear my throat, “I’ll take marmelade.” it comes out a bit shaky and I keep my gaze on Sapphire.  
“Juice or milk?”  
“Juice.” 

At dinner everyone sits down at the table and an extra stool is brought out, but we still needed to grab the rocking chair from the living room.  
“So,” Sapphire says as we put food on our plates, “Are you two siblings?”  
I say no at the same time Heracles says yes.  
“The thing is,” I start, giving Heracles a look that says I got this, “he was adopted.”  
“What’s adopted?” Sapphire asks.  
You see the thing is, it’s real easy to say stuff that I learned from the Theesburg and forget that no one else knows what I’m talking about. I’m not even supposed to know what I’m talking about!  
“Uh, it’s when a child is- a child who isn’t your own, is raised up as your own. Like, when a couple, or a single person, raises a kid that isn’t theirs. It’s common in the city.”  
Heracles looks at me a little odd, but he’s used to this.  
“Funny, I've never heard that.” Mrs. Omar comments.  
I nervously giggle.  
“So, you said you were going to the boy’s house? Where do you live, remind me of your name, please.”  
“Uh, it’s Heracles, and I live quite a few miles that way.” He jabs his thumb in the way we had come from.  
“Wait, shouldn’t you two live together?” Oceanus asks.  
“Well, you see I go to college.” I say. The family stares at me. I guess they can tell when I lie.  
“The truth is,” I sure hope Heracles isn’t about to tell the actual truth, “we are on a journey.” I elbow Heracles. Hard. That idiot keeps talking, “we are trying to find Cilla’s parents! But hey, we found you!”  
The family looks at him weird. I’m glad they haven’t understood what he just said yet.  
“We can’t substitute for her family.” Sapphire says.  
“A, Heracles, can I talk to you?” I ask.  
His green eyes set on me. Then he looks at the family. “You guys are her parents.” he says.  
I look at the other three at that table and say “sorry,” with that I grab my raspberry marmalade covered bread and throw it at Heracles. It lands on his faded white shirt. His mouth is wide open and his eyes are horrified. Next thing I do is walk out the door. 

“Hey.”  
I try not to cringe as Oceanus walks up behind me. After the whole jam debacle with Heracles I had fled outside to the tiny well a few feet from the house.  
“The stars are nice tonight. I guess. I can never see them well with all the trees surrounding my house.”  
I nod my head and try to hide my blushing face behind my dirty blonde hair.  
We are silent for a moment before Oceanus says, “Heracles told us about how you remember everything from that government place, how you’ve spent two years with folks who weren’t yours.”  
Once again I nod my head. I feel like maybe I should apologize, but how?  
She faces towards me with her arms crossed, “I mean, do you really think the government stole all our memories?”  
I shrug.  
“Uh, you know you can talk, right? I mean, yeah, you’re telling me that my parents are your parents and you threw bread at someone, but… for some reason I can’t shake the feeling that you’re right.”  
I stare at her. She believes me. It confuses my brain.  
“I mean look at you.” she says quietly, the moon light bouncing off her ocean blue eyes. “You have the same silver eyes as mother, the same nose and hair as dad, then look at me.” She looks down at herself. “I look nothing like them.”  
“Well, no,” I argue, “You have the same colored hair as Sapphire.”  
Her smile is warm. “Well, thank you, but I think you might want to learn to call them mom and dad. But that’s up to you. Anyway, where do you want to sleep tonight?”  
“I don’t think we’re staying.” it’s odd that my heart gets a little heavy after saying that.  
She laughs. “Then explain to me why Heracles is singing his heart out in the shower! Come on.” She grabs my hand and we walk towards the cabin. 

The next morning I wake up, take a quick shower, and sit at the dining room table, eagerly awaiting pancakes. The night before Oceanus had given up her bed for Heracles to stay a night, and had camped on the living room floor with me. Exhausted after a long day of excitement and walking I drifted off to sleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.  
When Heracles comes out in the morning with a bad case of bed hair he sits down on the stool next to me.  
“You don’t look good.” I tell him.  
“I’m just tired.” He yawns. “So-” another huge yawn, “we’ve found your fam, what now?”  
I shrug. “I’m not sure. I think we should find out why the government is separating the kids from their family.”  
He stops his yawn with his mouth hanging wide open. He closes his mouth. He opens his mouth, closes it. Opens it. “That wasn’t a part of the deal.”  
“Uhh, what deal?”  
“We decided to find your parents now we are trying to fight the government? Do you realize how stupid that is?”  
“Remember that little boy in the blankets at the Theesburg? If we don’t do something that boy will never know his real parents! He’ll grow up like you!”  
“Are you saying I’m horrible?”  
“No, no, that’s not, no! I’m saying just like every other kid on the planet, without their parents!” The family is listening now. But it’s not like they don’t know what we’re talking about.  
“Yeah, so maybe he will, but I grew up with , what did you call them? Oh, yeah, “adopted” parents! And I don’t regret a thing!”  
“So we’re just going to let that kid live a lie?”  
“Yeah! There’s nothing we can do!”  
“But what if there is?”  
“Like what, Cilla? What?”  
“I don’t know! I just, Heracles, we have to try!”  
Heracles quiets his voice to normal level, “try what?” Everyone stares at me and I look into Heracles’s eyes.  
“Cilla’s right.” Oceanus speaks up. “I wouldn’t do anything to lose the parents I have, but I do want to know whose child I am. Don’t you think we deserve to know the truth?”  
Heracles’s stare is intense and hard.  
“Ok.” He finally relents.  
“Thank you.” I say quietly.  
“I’ll go with you.” Oceanus says.  
“What?” I ask while her mother excliams, “You certainly will not!”  
“What, no! But I must! Guys,” she says, turning to Heracles and I, “I could be so valuable! I’m like a compass!”  
“I’ll go with them.” Atticus says. He hasn’t talked much.  
“No, dad, what good would you be? All you’re good at is being a handy man! Well, and you have a good memory, but what’s that got to do with the whole thing?”  
“I’ll keep your daughter safe, sir.” Heracles says, standing up from his chair.  
“We need her,” I tell them, “She knows these woods, she said that she’s a compass, and we have no idea where we are going!”  
“And that may be what scares us the most.” Sapphire says.  
“The government took you away from us when you were a child! Or, maybe they took Cilla, I’m not sure anymore,” Atticus shakes his head, “But the whole reason we live here is to stay away from the government! And now you want to go to them and demand all their secrets? It could get you killed!”  
“No I can convince them!” Heracles jumps in.  
“It’s true, he just might be able to.” I tell Atticus.  
“I’m great with convincing people. I know what’s in their heart so I can say what they think they want to hear, but twist it so I win.”  
“What?” Atticus asks, clearly confused.  
“He’s like a real life empath. He convince people to do just about anything by making it fit what their emotions want.” I explain.  
Atticus looks at me. “I sorta get it.”  
“Dad, it’s like you and your memory, it’s like me and my compass skill, but for him he’s an empath.”  
Atticus nods.  
“Look, Atticus,” Heracles speaks, “I- this confusion you said you have, about your daughter and which one is yours, we can fix it. You love Oceanus, anyone with eyes could see it, but your confused. Let your daughter answer all your questions.”  
“It’s a high cost.”  
“But it’s worth it.”  
“I’ll let you go, on one condition. You let my daughter get hurt, you die.”  
“Atticus!” his wife exclaims.  
Maybe I like my adopted dad, Lucius better. But Atticus is caring and passionate. I set these thoughts aside and focus on the conversation.  
“Honey, we have to let them go. Our whole life we’ve wanted another child, now we could get that wish.”  
Sapphire’s face looks like a ghoul’s. Then her silver eyes clear. “No. You have no idea where you’re going or what you’re doing. You are staying here. And so are you children.”  
“What?” I shriek. 

Sapphire stayed true to her word. She even locked the door, which seemed too far for me. She said she didn’t want Heracles and I to go out and get ourselves killed, but I was boiling all day.  
At about three in the afternoon a knock is heard on the door. “Who’s that?” I ask.  
Sapphire frowns and says, “I’m not sure.”  
Just as when Heracles and I had knocked on the door, Attacius opens it.  
“No baby, no need to be here,” he says to the person at the door. Everyone in the living room, (Heracles, Sapphire, Oceanus, and me) frowned at each other.  
“Let us in,” demands a gruff voice. Atticus steps back and two soldiers carrying guns walk in. Sapphire yelps at their weapons.  
“Which one of you is Cilla?” the army man asks. Slowly, I stand up.  
“You’re coming with us.”  
“What, no, I can’t go! Where am I going?”  
Looking at the other people in the room, the soldier says, “with us.”  
I look around the room, at all the terrified faces, and turn back to the soldiers. I have no choice. “Okay.”  
Each soldier grabs my elbow and I can’t help but look back at the family and Heracles. I stumble a bit as they pull me out the door.  
What if that’s the last time I get to see any of them?  
The men lead me to an army buggy, it’s tan camouflage and open, unlike most the buggies nowadays. I hop in the back with one of them still holding my elbow while the other puts keys in the ignition and starts the small car.  
After about an hour of traveling down a long and treacherous dirt road, I start to lose it. Until now, I’d been trying to fight off my rising panic and hysteria, but finally I can’t take it.  
“Where the heck are you taking me?”  
The driver turns in his seat and looks at me. For the first time I notice his red hair and dark brown eyes, “Government camp. Can’t tell you any more, miss.” At least they have the courtesy to call me miss. I fight off a growl and watch the sun turn the sky a beautiful shade of pink.  
We keep driving down the road which is steadily getting worse. The two soldiers pull out night vision goggles on but I’m still stuck here not being able to see a thing. The road gets even more unbearable, (if that’s at all possible) but despite all the rocks I can’t keep my eyes open. 

When my tired eyes open again I’m on a bed. Everything around me is a dull gray and the only sheet I have is one dirty blanket at the end of the thin mattress. No windows are set in the walls and the only light comes from a ceiling light.  
The door opens to my right.  
A woman with tight lips and brown hair set in a high bun, steps in with a small pink clipboard in her hand.  
“Ah, you’re awake.”  
I sit up and rub my head. “I guess so.”  
The lady looks behind her and slightly nods her head before closing the door. “Well, Cilla, you and I are alone here.”  
I snort. “Yeah, like I would believe that for a second.”  
The lady looks very uncomfortable. She sits on the edge of the bed, making me uncomfortable and tells me, “They say you remember everything from the Theesburg, is it true?”  
“Yeah.” I’m kind of freaked out by the way she’s looking at me, like I’m a math problem she’s supposed to solve.  
“How did you escape the memory serum?”  
“I don’t know. I had chocolate milk that tasted sour the morning before I went “home”.” I raise my fingers to emphasise it wasn’t really my home, “I had passed out not long after breakfast, when I’d had the chocolate milk, and- and then the next thing I knew I was in a buggy and Silent Paul was telling me I was going home. I’d been so excited, just to go home to people I’d never met before.”  
“But how did you escape the serum?”  
“I don’t know! Hey, why should I even trust you?”  
“I’m Melia Robert. I work here, at CRA.” She pronounced it like craw.  
“What does that stand for?” I ask, not bothering to look at her.  
“Child Removal Agency.”  
I snort, “Yeah, that’s how you make the people like you. I’m assuming you’re with the government?”  
“Yes, we are.”  
I perk up at the word “we”. “So there are other people here?”  
“No, I mean everyone else working for CRAY.”  
“First it’s craw, now it’s cray? Do you even know the name of your company?”  
“CRA is the name of the agency, but I work for the youth section, called CRAY.”  
“Child Removal Agency Youth? So what, if all the kids don’t remember a thing, why do you need to be incharge of a youth section?”  
“If we don’t make sure the children who are reunited with their families, so to speak, then the world would be in catastrophe! We must make sure all the teens and tweens stay as far away from the truth as possible.”  
I lean against the wall and close my eyes. “You said if these kids find out the truth, the world would be in conundrum.” I open my eyes again and stare at Melia. “What are you talking about?”  
She fidgets on the mattress and says, “Children used to try everything in their power to be separated from their parents. When they were about 16-24 they would set out in their life to find a husband or a wife. But the age of getting married kept getting older and the teens would spend way too much time with their parents. We decided to make sure they were never with their parents in the first place. So CRA was founded and we set out to rid the world of it’s… inconveniences.”  
“I don’t understand much of what you just told me, but I’ll ask one question at a time. What’s wrong with the kids and their parents?”  
“Through every family there is a special strand of DNA. It holds something unique and special about that family, you know stuff about that family that they themselves might not even know, just by looking at their DNA.”  
“What do you mean?”  
“Look at it this way,” she says, using her hands to illustrate her words, “it’s as though each family has a secret power.”  
“What kind of secret power?”  
“That depends entirely on the family, some are enhanced in their aim, or their eyesight, or their memory.”  
“That’s our power. When I was at Oceanus’s home she said something about her dad having an amazing memory.” I remember hearing it, but then it had just gone right over my head. “So… wait, you separated me from my parents so… so what? I still don’t understand.”  
Melia clears her throat, “not me specifically, but, back to the story. A long, long time ago children left their parents at the age of 18- 21 to get married. But as time went on they started getting married later and later until they lived with their parents half their life. This, of course was bad, the child was giving strength to the parent, making it so they hardly aged a day.”  
“Why is that wrong?”  
“They’d seen too much. Lived too long. They simply got tired of living and the suicide rates went up forty percent.”  
“Okay, that’s bad… but, how did the kids make them stop aging?”  
“The stronger powers kept getting stronger, family gave the parents and grandparents life. Think of it this way. You couldn’t forget the Theesburg because of your enhanced memory, but your dad could.”  
“I think I understand. But how can you justify separating the families? I mean, if they have the power and love you say they do, how do you do that?”  
“It’s for the good of this world. You’ll start to realize that.”  
I look at her sharply. “What do you mean?”  
“Well you are accepting the job, aren’t you?”  
“What job?”  
“To help out the foundation. With your enhanced memory and incapability to forget your pest we can’t have you running free out there.”  
“So I… I don’t have a choice?”  
“No.” Suddenly, a woman who had tried so hard to be a cupcake had shown her true form. A monster. And I have no choice but to go along. For the rest of my life.  
I swallow, willing my saliva to go down, “Well then, I guess I’ll take the job offer.” 

One tooth brush. A threadbare blanket. One clean pair of socks a day. One ultra thin mattress. A nightstand I have no use for.  
Those are my only provisions for who knows how long. I’ve been stuck in my tiny room for weeks. Once a day I get food that I’m allowed to ration, but sometime during the night they always take it away. All I ever have to do is a sequence of raps on the wall and a small toilet comes out.  
I can’t say how long I’ve been here, exactly. My guess is a month. I also can’t say where ‘here’ is. Once I’d agreed to do the job they knocked me out and here I am. Haven’t left since. I’m going insane.  
They haven’t tried to contact me or anything, just sat idly by as I have panic attacks.  
One day the door opened and Melia walks in, looking prestien in her pencil skirt, flowered blouse, and tip of the nose glasses. Her clean composer makes me squirm in my seat.  
My brown hair is sloppily tied in a ponytail I haven’t taken out in five days and my clothes are dirty and crinkled. I stopped caring about my appearance long ago.  
Melia doesn’t do anything, just stands there coldly, examining me. After a couple minutes she speaks.  
“We have a job for you.” As simple as that, I guess. ‘Cuz then she walks out and the guards close the door.  
A day later the guards grab my elbows and escort me out of my prison cell.  
I let them take me, at this point can anything be worse than my prison cell? Certainly not death!  
After many dizzying turns we make it to a room. It’s breathtakingly beautiful. A large fish tank ran the entire length of the wall next to me and wood paneling went up floor to ceiling next to it. The rest of the walls were a deep Caribbean blue. A desk with a pencil holder and a white lamp were at the end of the room and behind it was a whole wall of windows. My breath catches as I stare out them at the orange and pink sun setting against the white topped mountains.  
At the desk, in a swerve chair, sat Melia. Her hair was as tight as ever and I believe she drank a whole gallon of lemon juice and froze her mouth in place. And her dark maroon lipstick made the puckering so much more obvious. I wonder if someone should tell her to change the shade of her lipstick?  
Her lips move to make what I think is supposed to be a smile, but it really looks more like a grimace. The man who had brought me here pushes me into the room and closes the door behind me.  
“Here we are again.” Melia says. “How has your stay been?”  
I keep my mouth shut. She will not have the satisfaction of enticing me.  
“Some...” She searches for the right words, “disturbances have come up. And I need you to fix them.”  
“What are they?”  
“You remember your little friend Heracles? We debated on whether you were the best choice for this job, but we decided you were, that way we can see there is no getting out of this.”  
She brushes her finger across the top of the fish tank before saying, “We ask that you wipe Heracles’s memory.” 

“No.”  
“That wasn’t a question, Cilla.”  
Well then maybe you shouldn’t have worded it like one! I bite my tongue to keep from shouting.  
“He has been at the Omar’s for far too long, I believe he is planning to leave soon. Give up all hope of you coming back. I can’t blame him. You are only coming back for a short time. Just to take him away, into the woods, and wipe his memory.”  
Just like that. I’d had no idea it was so easy for a heart to break. But I’m broken. There is nothing left inside of me. For so long I didn’t know there was anything left inside of me, but now that it’s gone….  
I duck my head, trying to hide my tears with my hair as Melia continues talking, “Your parent's memory will be wiped as well. Your real ones. The Calla’s... well I suppose when Heracles comes home without you, they will punish him for hurting you.”  
Suddenly there is more than one emotion in my heart. Too many to count, I have no idea what I’m feeling or what I’m doing. Or what I’m supposed to do!  
“What would they do to him?” I choke up. No one ever does anything very bad, so I can’t think of an example of what my tiny village would do to Heracles.  
She sighs and, pulling a tiny mirror out of a drawer, starts fixing the few strands of hair that tried to escape the tightness of her bun. “Even I don’t know that. It’s been so long since there was a crime bigger than stealing food that I don’t know what the people would do.”  
My heart is beating so loud I nearly miss her words. “That will be the last time you see him, of course.”  
A choked sound escapes my lips. Of course it is. But I hadn’t realized it until now.  
Melia looks up at my tear stained face and sighs in the way she always does. The sigh that makes you feel ashamed.  
“You are going to have to get used to the truth, we don’t tell little white lies here. So come to the fact that you will never see your boy again! Wipe off your tears now!”  
I use the heel of my palm and wipe away the stains my tears had made. This is not the time to cry. But apparently neither is in my cell.  
I’m back in the same position as I’ve been in for the last month, curled up in a ball on my springless bed, back against the wall, my tears refusing to give me relief from my pain.  
I stay there, curled up in a ball, and eventually I figure out what’s wrong. There is one way to hold me together.  
I have to save Heracles.

Two days later a package of clothes appears inside my cell. I put on the clothes. A gray long sleeve shirt with the CRA logo on it and gray baggy pants that are too long.  
The material is scratchy and uncomfortable and pretty airy, surprisingly. I use a tiny, thin rope and pull my hair back into a loose ponytail.  
Two guards escort me out of my cell. They load me in the back of one of their covered military trucks. They both move to the front and five more military men come into the covered back.  
We sit in silence and feel every bump and rut in the road. I try to focus on the little details, one of the soldiers tapping her finger against her gun, the rattle of the chains on the truck, anything to distract me from the hurricane inside my stomach.  
Eventually we come to a stop. I am the last person to leave the truck. In front of me is my house. The Omar’s house. Oceanus’s house. My parent's house.  
A soldier with black hair comes up to me. “This is Hermes. He is here to make sure you follow the rules and don’t do anything wrong.”  
I don’t look as I feel Herme’s eyes bore into my back.  
After orders are given (I was too nervous to pay any attention to what they were) one soldier peeks into an open window at the side of the house and throws in a small, black ball. I’m far enough away I don’t have to put on a mask, but the man who threw in the memory ball does.  
I watch as the gas fills the window, trying not to think of how my family will soon have no idea who I am. I am overwhelmed with emotions, yet an empty vessel at the same time.  
The soldier with black hair comes up to me again, “We searched the house. Heracles isn’t there. Go with Hermes and give him this.”  
My hand shakes as I grab the only thing I dare to look at. A metal mask that is meant to cover the mouth and the nose. When someone breathes into it, the hot breath causes it to fill with a memory loss serum.  
And I’m supposed to put it on Heracles’s mouth.  
I breathe a shuddering gasp and start tromping through the woods with Hermes, who watches me closely.  
We didn’t know how long it had been since Heracles had set out and we have no idea if we were even going to find him. We sit down late in the day and swallow some hard tac.  
It was the sunset of the first day that we found him. 

“Heracles!” I shout before thinking of what my consequences could be. I was told to sneak up on him and put on his mask from behind. Now he knows I’m here. Wouldn’t it be easier if he didn’t know what I was doing to him?  
His strawberry blond head turns and his eyes light with joy. Then fear, when he sees Hermes.  
I want time alone with him. To run away with him. But I can’t.  
A tear streaks down my face when he asks in a voice much deeper than I remember, “How have you been?”  
I can’t fall apart. I can’t. I take a deep breath. I have a job to do. “Fine. You going home?”  
He nods his head slowly.  
Hermes nudges my arm, “stick with the plan!” he hisses. “I want to start back by tonight.” I nod my head. I have to talk to Heracles. I have to. But how?  
Then the opportunity comes.  
“I'll be in the woods. Don’t do anything, and don’t follow me.” says Hermes.  
I watch him disappear into the trees, hoping and praying this wasn’t a trick. But even if it was, they had to know I wouldn’t cooperate. Why not make a defiant move now?  
I walk up to Heracles. There is only a half a foot of space between us. His light hair has grown out and is a little unruly and his arms have gained muscles, probably from working with Atticus.  
He’s grown taller too. I realize that in the last month his birthday passed and he is now thirteen. But he’s grown in the past month. So have I. Not just physically, I can see in his eyes that he now holds a sense of maturity.  
“Now’s your chance! Come with me! We can run away, go someplace they could never find us!” He hisses.  
I shake my head as my eyes pool, “No,” I choke, “I can’t go with you. They would find us. But then you too would be in danger! Go, leave now, but don’t go back home. They could hurt you when you’re back home. And the CRA could find you, it won’t take long for them to realize I never wiped your memory. Go, I could never live with myself if they caught you!”  
“I’m not going without you!”  
“You have to.”  
“But what if they hurt you because you let me go?”  
I swallow my tears, or at least try to. “I guess that’s a chance I have to take.”  
We hear the bushes rustle to our left and know Hermes is coming back.  
“Come with me.” Heracles says in a low pleading, broken voice.  
It’s almost enough to make me agree. But I can’t.  
I don’t say anything, but Heracles has always been able to read my mind.  
With both our faces streaked with tears, he cups my face and I cup his. Before I realize what’s happening our lips have connected and the saddest, worst, most beautiful feeling runs through my body. All the pain of the future and happiness of the past, it’s all in that one, quick, kiss. And I will never forget it.  
Heracles pulls away and after looking in my eyes for a split second runs away.  
At that moment Hermes walks back into the tiny clearing, but I don't notice him.  
My blurry vision is fixed on Heracles’s pale green eyes staring at me from the shadows. Then they are gone. 

IT’S UP TO YOU TO DECIDE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.


End file.
